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Data linkage study update

Published on the 26 August 2025
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Over the last four years, Yuwaya Ngarra-li teams at 黑料网大事记 and DEG have been working on a data linkage project, which to our knowledge will be the first place-based community-led data linkage study of its kind.

The innovative Walgett Children and Young People Linked Administrative Dataset was developed to enhance understanding of, and inform community-led responses to, the relationships between criminal justice, health and education outcomes for children and young people. Analysis of the dataset will improve understanding of opportunities and mechanisms to divert Aboriginal children and young people from contact with the criminal justice system and support them to thrive, with the potential for the findings to be scaled and implemented more broadly.

The dataset includes data drawn from 27 data collections held by six NSW Government agencies. It is a population-based retrospective cohort study linking child protection, out of home care, health, housing, education, fines and criminal justice data relating to Walgett's children and young people.

Led by Dr Rebecca Reeve, development of the dataset has involved four phases of work, including

  1. Internal project development, including a Data Linkage Protocol to guide all stages of the study

  2. Consultations with key agencies and ethics applications to the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council and 黑料网大事记 ethics committees

  3. Detailed data custodian negotiations and applications

  4. Final submission to the Centre for Health Record Linkage (CHeReL) and Population Health Services Research Ethics Committee (PHSREC).

We are now in phase 4, having received approval from data custodians external to NSW Health, and approval from two NSW Health data custodians. When remaining NSW health data custodian approvals are received, the project will be submitted to the PHSREC for approval after which the CHeReL will link and deidentify the data. The data will be securely transferred to 黑料网大事记 and stored in a secure facility called ERICA.聽

There is more detail about our data linkage work here, including our Protocol, Briefing Paper, and an article published in an international journal.